


Not Acting Weird

by maybeillcomebackoneday



Category: Easy Allies RPF, Gametrailers RPF
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 07:17:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8195606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybeillcomebackoneday/pseuds/maybeillcomebackoneday
Summary: Brandon started figuring out that there was something between them all. Maybe something really significant.
Unfortunately, Kyle and Ian figured it out first.
Prompt: “You can’t miss what wasn’t yours.”





	

Ian, Brandon, and Kyle had fallen into a routine. Every Saturday they would go out for brunch, usually at some place Ian knew. They’d spend the rest of the day at Jones’s, playing games or watching movies and just enjoying being together.

That last Saturday, was nearly identical to all the others.

They went for brunch. The conversation was sharp and fast, bouncing back and forth between the three of them with equal force. They left the restaurant laughing and full of french toast.

They spent the day sprawled across the couch, limbs overlapping and playing increasingly competitive Mario Kart games and switching to retro fighting games when they wanted a bigger challenge.

Kyle looked at ease. At ease in a way he rarely did outside of their Saturday hangouts. Something about those moments had the tension leeching out of Kyle’s shoulders. His smile came easier and his laughter was more sincere.

Ian looked less lonely. Their body language was open, trusting. They joked less about being alone. They reached out for contact.

Dinner was delivery, eaten during a movie they weren’t paying attention to. By the time the credits rolled, all three of them were curled together on the couch. None of them moved to get up.

“Up for another movie?” Ian asked, smiling.

Jones put on another movie.

\----------------------------------------------------

Brandon awoke to a sore neck and two warm bodies pressed against his. He remembered Kyle falling asleep first, then him and Ian shifting around trying to find a comfortable position to watch the rest of movie.

He figured they’d all get up at some point.

But because he was waking up on his couch, he knew no one had. Kyle was still pressed up against him, from shoulder to thigh. Kyle’s head was tucked into the crook of his neck. On his left, Ian’s legs were thrown over one side of the couch and their back was propped up against Brandon’s chest. His arm was draped over their shoulder and resting on Sophie, who was curled in their lap.

Jones’s drowsy brain was content to sit there forever.

But Sophie was waking up and getting antsy. She jumped off Ian’s lap and started nosing at Brandon’s legs.

Brandon carefully detangled himself from the mess of limbs on the couch. Kyle opened their eyes a little as Brandon was moving Ian.

“Did we all fall asleep during the movie?” Kyle asked, voice rough and deeper than usual.

“Go back to sleep, Kyle,” Brandon whispered, hoping Ian wouldn’t wake up.

“What time is it?” he continued, eyes barely open.

Ian reached for Kyle’s lap, and rested their head on his thigh. Kyle blushed faintly in the dark.

“It’s too late to drive home, just go back to sleep,” Brandon insisted.

Brandon leashed up Sophie and went to take her outside for a walk.

He was outside for ten minutes, maybe less, but when he came back inside, the atmosphere in the garage had changed. He didn’t move beyond the doorway to the garage, but he didn’t need to. The dim light of the television illuminated them both enough.

Ian was sitting up in Kyle’s lap. His right hand was tangled in their hair. His left was wrapped around their waist. Their hands rested on his chest, slowly sliding up toward his neck. He was looking at Ian like they were the most beautiful person he had ever seen. Brandon watched, completely still, as Ian pressed their lips to Kyle's.

Something inside Jones turned to ice. He turned around and left as silently as he could.

He trudged up the stairs into his bedroom, and slid under the covers, hoping to keep out the sudden chill.

The house had never felt lonely before.

\----------------------------------------------------

A few days later, Brandon got a text from Ian.

_Hey Jonesy, Kyle and I are going to the beach on Saturday and can’t make our normal hangout. Could we reschedule?_

Next week, Brandon texted them both.

_Guys, I can’t do tomorrow. Something came up. See you on Tuesday._

The week after, Friday at midnight from Kyle.

_I’m not feeling great so I think I’m gonna stay home this weekend._

And then a text from Ian, seconds later. Totally inconspicuous.

_Something came up last minute, give Bossy my best._

It went on like that for weeks, them all avoiding each other. Except for Tuesdays.

\----------------------------------------------------

Spendings Tuesdays at Jones’s was something the group did every week. That included Ian and Kyle. He still hadn’t talked to them about what he saw, and wasn’t really looking forward to it.

They started arriving together, arm in arm. Brandon smiled through the ache in his chest. For most of the night, being around them was so _easy_. It was easy like things were on those Saturdays.

Until it isn’t. It was four days after that Saturday night.

They were all in Jones’s backyard.

“Ian, how do you do it?” Ben asked, leaning forward in his chair. “You’ve been alone for pretty much as long as I’ve known you, and it never seems to affect you. How do you do it?”

“Aww, Ben, are you lonely?” they teased, gently elbowing him.

“Well, yeah,” Ben admitted, “but I really do want to know.”

“Well, as of recently,” they began with a knowing smile, “my boyfriend helps.”

Ben grinned, getting excited for them. “I didn’t know you started seeing someone!”

“Yeah it’s only been a couple weeks,” they said. Ben missed the look that Kyle shot them. He looked surprised, but glad, and immensely fond. She met his eyes for an instant before looking back to Ben.

Brandon didn’t miss it. Something inside him felt like it was breaking. That he should be part of whatever they were. Be with the people he loves.

_Love?_

His mind pulled up that word before he could stop it. He couldn’t love them. They loved each other already.

He couldn’t love them. That thought stuck fast in his mind. He _couldn’t_.

Brandon rambled some bullshit excuse about needing to get something from the house before scrambling inside. He locked himself in the bathroom and slid to the floor. He took a few minutes to bury the sudden sadness that had overtaken him.

He started pulling away after that. He stopped asking them to hang out. He stopped texting Ian every other day about something that reminded him of them. He stopped inciting conversations he knew would lead to Kyle explaining something to him in depth. In that moment, he didn’t know how much it would hurt.

\----------------------------------------------------

Six Fridays after Ian and Kyle kissed on Brandon’s couch, Kyle knocked on Brandon’s door.

Brandon pulled the door open, and Kyle wasn’t smiling.

“Hey Kyle, what are you doing here?”

“You’ve been acting weird, Jones. We’re worried about you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Brandon lied, trying to keep his cool. “And ‘we’? Do you mean Ian? Where are they?”

“Can I come in?” Kyle asked, getting to the point.

Brandon welcomed him inside, like he always would. “Want anything to drink?”

“No, Jones, I just want to talk to you.” Kyle insisted, leading the way into the garage and sitting down on the couch.

“Ok sure,” Jones said, standing in the doorway. “Shoot.”

“What’s been bothering you lately? You’ve been acting strange for weeks,” Kyle asked. Brandon sighed, crossed the room, and sat down beside him.

Brandon was inches from pouring his heart out, but he shoved it down. “Its nothing.”

Kyle saw through the clear attempt at deflection. “If it’s bothering you, it’s not nothing.”

“It’s not like you can help me with it.”

“I might not be able to help, but you can still talk to me about it.”

“You don’t want to hear about my problems, Kyle. Everything’s fine. Really.”

Kyle turned to look him in the eye. “I’ll always be here to listen if you need it.” Brandon’s breath caught in his throat.

He looked away with a small shuddering exhale, finding his eyes drawn to the far corner of the couch. Where he had seen Ian and Kyle. “It’s just that I miss…” he began before stopping himself. Bad word choice. _He couldn’t love them_. He didn’t miss them. They weren’t his to miss.

Kyle saw the first sign of Brandon opening up and pursued it.

“Miss what, Jones?” Kyle asked, sounding more like a moderator than anything else.

“It’s not really ‘missing’ something.” Brandon took a breath. “You can’t miss what wasn’t yours.” He expected that to be a thrown away. Expected Kyle not to understand. Expected more questions.

But what he got instead was a curious look passing over Bosman’s face. Something between comprehension and apprehension.

The moment stretched on. A silence more tense than awkward. One Jones’s heart couldn’t take.

He stood up from the couch.

Kyle’s hand darted out for his, gently grasping around his wrist. Not his hand, his _wrist_. He had to fight his instinct to intertwine their hands.

Kyle looked up at him and said nothing. Brandon watched his brow furrow and watched his face cycle through regret, guilt, confusion, longing, and _affection_ and watched him still _say nothing._

Brandon tugged his hand away.

“Go home, Kyle.”

\----------------------------------------------------

The next morning, Brandon was halfway through a cup of coffee when he got a call from Ian.

Ian started talking before Brandon could even say hello.

“Hey Jones. Kyle said you were being weirder than usual last night.”

“ _That is not what I said!_ ” yelled Kyle’s voice, far away from the receiver of the phone.

“Am I on speaker?” Brandon asked.

“Yeah, but it’s just with Bosman. And he’s already seen you being weird.”

“Well, Kyle’s the one who stared at me in total silence for a solid minute-and-a-half and then immediately left my house,” Brandon teased, unable to help himself.

“Did you really do that?” Ian asked, voice sounding farther away from the phone.

Kyle’s laugh was barely audible, but Brandon knew his voice well enough to understand the words that came after. “It sounds worse when you put it that way.”

“So you did?” Brandon could hear the smile in Ian’s voice.

Kyle sighed. “I did.”

“And you’re judging Jones for being weird?” Ian laughed.

“He told me to leave!” Kyle insisted. “And I didn’t say weird.”

“Ok, Bossy, then what word did you use? Do you want to be the one having this conversation?”

“Well if you’re not going to do it right then I might as well-”

Brandon found himself smiling at the sounds of their banter and forced it away.

“If you guys want to have your conversation, I can hang up.” _Don’t leave me in this weird place. Let me in or kick me out. Just don’t leave me hanging here in the doorway._

There was some sort of commotion on the other side of the phone, and when a voice came through, it was Kyle’s.

“Ian and I wanted to know if you’d get dinner with us tonight.” Brandon fought back anything he felt in that instant. The hope, the pair, the fear. Tried to shove it away somewhere Ian and Kyle could never see it.

“ _C’mon Bosman, we’ve gotta be more direct than that. That’s what got us all into this in the first place,”_ insisted a distant Ian.

There was a long pause. It sounded like the phone changed hands.

Ian’s voice came through closer and clearer, “You still there, Jonesy?”

“Of course I am.”

“Last night, Bosman came home and we talked for a long time,” Ian began. They paused, just for an instant. “I don’t think either of us knew _we_ were hurting you. Or that we were hurting. Or that you were as much a part of… _this_ as we are.”

Brandon’s chest tightened. It was relief, hope, validation. He tried to say something, anything. But no words came out.

“ _Brandon, we want to ask you out,”_ Kyle yelled, quite a distance from the phone again. Was he pacing?

“We want to see if this can work. Because we want it to,” Ian continued, unfazed by Kyle’s interjection. “And we completely understand if you don’t want-”

“I do want this. You. Us.” Brandon stammered out. A thought popped into his mind and then fell from his lips before he could stop it. “I saw you kiss on the couch that night you slept over.”

“You saw that?” Ian asked, sounding sorry.

“Yeah, I did. And I don’t think I’ve ever wanted something so much in my life.”

“Us kissing?” Kyle piped up.

“No,” Brandon. “Being _with_ you.”

Ian replied, their voice quiet and earnest. “We want that too, Jones. See you for dinner?”

“Absolutely,” Brandon confirmed, unable to keep the smile off his face.

When they knocked on his door, Brandon invited them both inside. He wanted them to have moment alone before going back out into the world. They were both smiling, and it felt good not need to fight his own. Deep down, he knew this would work. They all did.

Ian gently touched Jones’s face and looked him in the eye. Kyle, seeing that Brandon was a little distracted, stepped behind him and wound skinny arms around Jones’s torso. He slotted his chest against Brandon’s broad back, holding him close. Brandon hadn’t expected this sort of physical intimacy from Kyle, but it was so welcome. Ian’s free hand guided Brandon’s hands to sit against their waist before falling to grip Bosman’s arms.

Kyle stepped forward just a little, pushing Brandon so he was flush against Ian’s chest.

Ian grinned. “Thanks Kyle.”

“Is it too soon to ask about kissing you?” Brandon asked softly.

“No,” Ian replied, tilting their head up. He could feel their breath against his lips.

“No to which part?”

Brandon felt Bosman’s quiet laugh more than he heard it, in the subtle shaking of his chest and the jagged exhale against his neck. His head was spinning.

“It’s not too soon.”

They leaned in, pressing their lips gently against Brandon’s. He tightened his arms around their waist, pulling their chest flush to his. He felt another pair of lips press against his neck, just below his ear. And a deep sense of content settled in his chest. Like he belonged here, between two people he loved.


End file.
